Energy Dept. Optimistic About Resurgence of Nuclear Power.

The Department of Energy's International Nuclear Safety Program has focused during the past seven years on trying to improve the safety of 67 Soviet-designed nuclear power reactors in Central and Eastern Europe. DOE views this program as an important step in restoring confidence in the viability of nuclear power as an energy source, both in the United States and abroad.

Public acceptance of nuclear plants was shattered after the 1986 disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine. But according to INSP officials, there are reasons to believe that nuclear safety has improved and that their program has helped diminish the likelihood of another Chernobyl. The INSP generally has been supported by the U.S. Congress, but, nevertheless, funding for the program has declined over time.

Gary Petersen, information manager for INSP, said that it makes sense for the United States to invest in safety programs to prevent another accident. In 2001, DOE contributed $19.4 million to INSP The program's budget of $61.6 million also includes funds from the Agency for International Development and the European Bank of Reconstruction and development.

For 2002, the budget was cut to $56.4 million. DOE slashed its proposed funds by $6.5 million. At press time, Congress was still working on the appropriations bills for 2002. INSP is not expected to run beyond 2006, said Petersen. "Congress does not like to see programs run forever," he added. Some members of Congress have criticized the program as a form of foreign aid.

Reduced U.S. funding and the poor economic conditions in the former Soviet countries are slowing some of the nuclear plant safety improvements, INSP officials said.

U.S. support for nuclear plant safety began in 1990, when DOE initiated a program to improve the operational safety at the Novovoronezh plant in Russia. Another effort began in 1991 at Bulgaria's Kozloduy plant. In 1992, a G-7 nations summit in Munich endorsed an initiative to enhance the safety of Soviet-designed reactors, modify unsafe designs and give more authority to regulatory organizations.

INSP, managed by DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration with support from the Pacific Northwest Laboratory, started in 1994. The program focuses on performing safety work at 23 nuclear power plants with 67 reactors in Armenia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.

"These countries are relying quite a bit on nuclear power," said Petersen. Seventy-seven percent of Lithuania's energy comes from nuclear power reactors, while Russia's is 44 percent and Ukraine's 43 percent.

"They have to continue relying on nuclear plants," he added. "Anyway you look at it, Central European and former Soviet Union countries need nuclear power to overcome their financial difficulties. They need nuclear power to rebuild their industry."

Since the last unit closed at Chernobyl last December, 6,000 workers have been laid off, with no place to go, Petersen explained. "It's an economic and political issue."

Many of these countries don't have any other alternative sources of energy, since they don't have coal, and shipping natural gas would be too expensive, he said. "Just to shut them down would not be an easy choice, but nobody wants to have another Chernobyl."

The Soviet Union drafted 800,000 workers to clean up the Chernobyl accident site.

Petersen said that INSP officials have tried to encourage countries that rely heavily on nuclear power to think less about production and more about safety.

Soviet-designed reactors are mostly of two kinds. An RBMK reactor uses graphite to moderate neutrons, or slow them down to improve the efficiency of the nuclear chain reaction. The nuclear fuel is contained in about 1,700 pressure tubes. Cooling water passes through the tubes, where fission in the nuclear fuel produces heat that boils the water to produce steam. The steam is routed to a turbine generator that produces electricity.

With an RBMK, power instabilities can lead to increased boiling that, in turn, increases steam bubbles or voids in the cooling water, explained INSP scientists. The voids allow power levels to increase, thus creating even more steam voids that result in local power increases and can lead to uncontrolled nuclear reaction.

VVER reactors use pressurized light water for core cooling and to moderate the nuclear chain reaction. The VVER reactors are similar to Western pressurized light water reactors. The newest version, VVER-1000, meets most modern safety standards. It has an emergency core cooling system and a containment building. INSP officials said, however, that its fire-protection and electronic control-and-protection systems need improvement.

The United States, along with 20 other countries, has worked on developing safety parameters that provide immediate information on plant operating conditions, emergency water supplies, plant security, emergency operating instructions, operator reliability studies, safety centers, emergency operating instruction, training and simulation, and fire protection.

Some of the reactors, he said, had wooden doors between rooms and had to be replaced with fire-resistant doors. Reactor- control-room simulators are also an important part of teaching safety at these plants, said Petersen. "It looks identical with the control room of a major reactor, and operators can get used to how to handle any kind of anomaly."

One of these simulators could cost up to $11 million. "Most of these countries do not have that kind of money," Petersen said.

Some of the plants still have power interruptions, he said. "If you are sending our 1,000 mega watts, but the transmission line is down, then you have to shut down the reactor, and you have to do it really quickly, because there is no place for the power to go," Petersen said. "If you disrupt the transmission lines, then you have to shut down the power source.

Also, in the Ukraine, the Chernobyl Shelter, or Sarcophagus--constructed over the unit destroyed in 1986--is unstable, deteriorating and in danger of collapse, Petersen said. G-7 countries have donated $760 million for improving the shelter since 1998. In the same year, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development awarded a $21.6 million contract and in 2000, a $23.8 million contract, to a ream of Bechtel, Battelle, Electricite de France and Energoatom to make sure the shelter will comply with international practices and standards.

"A nuclear accident in the world is an accident anywhere in the world," said Mike McClary, DOE deputy director for the office of international and nuclear safety and cooperation in the National Nuclear Security Administration.

McClary said that the old-style reactors, in general, do not have containment structures around the reactors. But, he said, it is easier to invest money to make the reactors safer rather than shut them down, because these countries have no other source of energy. "We see this program as being very important for U.S. national security," McClary said.

Also, increased safety at those disaster-prone reactors could restore the American public's faith in nuclear energy, said Bill Magwood, DOE director of nuclear energy science and technology. Given the recent energy crisis in California, the Bush administration is considering proposals to help increase the production of nuclear energy in the United States.

The United States has 103 nuclear reactors that produce 20 percent of the country's electricity.

"Nuclear power industry in the United States has a tremendously good record, and that is true around the world, minus Russia," said McClary. "The question here is whether to build new plants," said Magwood. "Utilities have expressed that desire."

Three new nuclear power-plant designs are being marketed today, according to Magwood. The United States is looking at the possibility of building pebble-bed modular reactors, a technology that has been used in Germany for almost 15 years. "We think [these reactors] could be deployed in the United States by 2010," said Magwood. However, DOE is working on a roadmap until the end of next year to determine which technologies could be turned into long-term reactors.

"They are very expensive to build, but then it is a very cost-effective way of producing electricity," Magwood said.

"From an economics point of view, there are hurdles in building new [plants]," said Howard Gruenspecht, a resident scholar with Resources for the Future, a non-profit, non-partisan think-tank in Washington, D.C. With nuclear plants, "you have your money tied up for a period of time before producing revenue. That is going to be a significant issue."

Economically, nuclear plants do not seem to be as competitive as natural gas plants, Gruenspecht added. The only way that would change, in his opinion, is if natural-gas prices experienced large increases and environmental regulations restricting greenhouse gas emissions became much tighter.

The focus will probably shift to re-licensing existing nuclear power plants, Gruenspecht said. "Nuclear plants are viewed as a pretty attractive alternative."

"There are cheaper and quicker alternatives to creating more energy such as natural gas and energy conservation," said Thomas Cochran, the director of the nuclear program at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C.

Building more nuclear plants also would create more nuclear waste and that is one of the toughest issues, said Magwood. "To have a long-term solution requires a geological repository." But he said, the waste issue could be dealt with safely and effectively from a technological standpoint.

"There are 42,000 metric tons of nuclear waste stockpiled around the country, and we don't have any safe place to put it," said Debbie Boge, senior Washington, D.C. representative for the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group.

DOE has proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada, which already is a repository, as a permanent site for nuclear waste disposal.

Scientists have built a tunnel at Yucca to study how water migrates into the mountain, to make sure nuclear waste will not contaminate the water, Magwood said.

But Lisa Gue, policy analyst for Public Citizen, a Washington watchdog organization, said that the mountain sits above a fresh water aquifer, which serves as a water supply for people in the neighboring area. She said that the standards the Environmental Protection Agency has set so far for the Yucca Mountain site are very unusual rules.

"The EPA standard is a measuring stick and, basically, DOE has to decide if they recommend the Yucca site to Congress," Gue said.

According to Gue, the EPA has decided that there should be a maximum of 15 milligrams of radiation per year coming from the repository, while only four milligrams are acceptable for drinking water. However, Gue explained, the EPA has set a 12-mile buffer zone--basically to the border of the site--where radiation can be diluted to higher proportions. She called this "legalized pollution," because, she said, that with any nuclear reactor there should be a strong plan for containment.

Gue also said that the EPA standards were set for the next 10,000 years, while most radiation will escape after 100,000 years.

Another problem with Yucca Mountain, said the Sierra Club's Boge, is that the site is not geologically stable, because there are earthquake fault lines nearby.

"This site will never go forward if it is not proven right," said Magwood. He said that DOE will decide by the end of this year.